alternate
by envysparkler
Summary: Ran dreams of a girl she's never met. - Ran, Amu.


**a/n:** i haven't really written much for this fandom but hey, new oneshot! /distracts readers with a shiny manuscript/ happy new year!

**dedication:** to 2013.

**disclaimer:** i don't own anything.

**summary:** Ran dreams of a girl she's never met. - Ran, Amu.

* * *

**alternate**

* * *

Ran thinks she's going insane. This is the fifth time she's dreamt of the pink-haired girl and it is five times too many.

It's only been a week since the strange dreams started and when Su and Miki burst into her room, demanding to know what's wrong, Ran simply tells them it's a nightmare.

She's not even lying, not really.

So Ran snuggles in Su's warm, chocolate-smelling embrace and drifts off listening to Miki tell her a bedtime story and reminds herself it was only a dream.

The pink-haired girl simply smiles and tells her that's not true.

* * *

Her sisters are loud and rambunctious and it is easy to forget the girl – Hinamori Amu, what an unusual name – when she's with them, laughing at their antics.

Of course, the noise attracts other and Ran promptly asserts her Queen Bee personality when Kiseki shows up. He may be the Prince of Humpty-Dumpty but _she_ is the one in charge here.

He ignores her in favor of Miki's shy smiles and Ran lets him go, unwilling to stand between her sister and the guy she likes. _Next time_, she vows, watching the two happily, _next time he won't get off so easily_.

Next time never comes, but Ran is all right with that, as long as she gets to sit and snicker at their painful attempts to have a conversation. Well, until Miki grows that spine she always boasts about and starts flirting with the stuffy prince.

Kiseki, surprised, starts flirting back.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, Ran's best friend and closest confidant is neither of her sisters. Nor is it Princess Temari, or even her half-brother, Rhythm.

In fact, Ran's best friend is Kusu-Kusu and it's the petite clown she turns to first. She confides everything about her problem, about the strange, vaguely familiar girl that haunts her dreams.

In a rare show of seriousness, Kusu-Kusu does not crack a single joke.

* * *

Ran sleeps, and dreams and finds herself back at the feet of the pink-haired girl. This has become a pattern and so Ran only grumbles before getting to her feet and offering the girl a cold glare.

Amu merely laughs and there is something in that laugh that is far too sad and lost for Ran to bear. She feels an inexplicable kinship with this girl, as if they were sisters, or best friends in some life gone past.

Amu reads her mind and tells her that she's not far off the mark.

* * *

Ran juggles Dia from arm to arm, trying to get her youngest sister to go to sleep and _shut up_. The blonde baby girl is going through a _phase_, or so Su explained, and she is keeping Ran from sleeping, and more importantly, _dreaming_.

Miki wordlessly takes the toddler from Ran and waves her older sister back to her room.

Her family does not understand why she's become so obsessed with sleeping.

* * *

Ran has spent the last few weeks trying to puzzle out her strange dream intruder. Under the guise of all the questions and insults and tantrums she's thrown, she's become closer to Amu.

It's as if, all her life, something was missing and now, suddenly, it clicked again.

She can tell Amu feels the same way.

* * *

Ran absently scans the book, searching the pages for any explanation of what was happening to her. She tries to hide her search from Amu, but it's no use, the girl can easily read her mind.

Amu tells her that if she wants to know, all she has to do is ask, but Ran is afraid of the gleam of _other_ in Amu's eyes, of spite and cruelty and she takes the coward's way out.

She is so absorbed in her thoughts that it takes the arrival of Yoru and the subsequent gagging noises before she realizes that Miki and Kiseki are passionately making out in front of her.

* * *

It's been a year since the first dream when Ran realizes that she actually looks _forward_ to seeing Amu and continuing their conversations.

It's a kind of friendship that goes beyond what she has with Kusu-Kusu, an intimacy that all of Yoru's affection can't replicate. Ran feels _connected_ with this pink-haired girl in a way she can't explain.

It is almost like she's a part of Amu, but Ran immediately dismisses that thought.

Amu laughs and laughs.

* * *

Ran gets the shock of her life when she gets up, looks into the mirror and sees Amu's face staring back at her.

* * *

Amu smiles sadly at Ran's angry expression. _You've finally figured it out_ floats around in the pale, white atmosphere.

Ran snarls, angrily, too far gone to care about the consequences, and demands the _truth_.

Amu tells her.

* * *

Ran does not know what to do. A lifetime she can't remember, a world she's never recalled, a fate she was consigned to.

Amu's explanation would have seemed impossible, if not for the _rightness_ it exuded.

Deep down, Ran can tell that she's telling the truth.

* * *

When Amu finds out that Ran's dating Yoru, she congratulates her, and blinks very quickly, catching all but the one tear that falls down.

* * *

Ran is tired of this guessing game, tired of constantly wondering if what Amu says is true, tired of this longing for a world she's long forgotten.

So she asks Amu, one night, why she left, why they separated, why Ran was no longer part of the life that her heart ached for.

She wakes up abruptly, in the middle of the night, with Amu's goodbye echoing in the air.

"_I stopped believing."_

* * *

Not even Su's freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and Miki's beautiful drawings can take away the pain Ran feels, the heartbreak Amu's departure has caused.

Her sisters, even little Dia, try and try, but Ran knows that the sharp pain of abandonment is one she'll carry for all eternity, from this life into the next.

* * *

It takes another year to erase the damage Amu wrought, but Ran finally has a life again. She smiles and giggles and laughs and becomes the social butterfly she always was. She delves into her relationship with Yoru and she takes pleasure in teasing Miki and threatening Kiseki and completely ignoring the fact that he's a Prince.

Her laughs at Kusu-Kusu's jokes are real, now, and her bossy attitude is back, much to everyone's disappointment.

She still remembers Amu's words at times, but she's stopped second-guessing everyone around her and ruthlessly clamps down on every self-doubting thought.

It almost works, too, until her friends begin having the same dreams.

* * *

Ran crouches next to her sisters' corpses and can't even muster the tears to cry. With eyes reflecting the pain of two lifetimes, Ran sees the mindless destruction that has been wrecked across the peaceful country, across this perfect world.

Ran thinks back to Amu, and the spite in her eyes, the vengeance for a crime that was all her own fault, and wonders how much cruelty humans will inflict before they are finally satisfied.

* * *

**le fin**

* * *

**a/n:** for the record, this was totally supposed to end happily.


End file.
